Three generations of mutant butterflies found in Fukushima

Radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused a macabre and hair-raising consequence - butterflies that flitted around in the neighboring fields are being born with crippled, discolored wings, misshapen eyes, stunted legs and shortened antennas.

| TNN | Aug 14, 2012, 03.27 PM IST

NEW DELHI: Radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused a macabre and hair-raising consequence - butterflies that flitted around in the neighboring fields are being born with crippled, discolored wings, misshapen eyes, stunted legs and shortened antennas.

A team of Japanese scientists from University of the Ryukyus in the southern Japanese island of Okinawa collected 144 'Pale Blue Grass' butterflies (called Zizeeria maha in scientific lingo) in May last year. Some of them were from the Fukushima prefecture where the nuclear power plant had suffered a disastrous meltdown on March 11, 2011. Other specimens were from other distant locations in Japan.

The Fukushima butterflies bore visible signs of crippling and shortened life cycles. Specimens collected from other regions had no such abnormalities. The full-grown butterflies would have been spending the winter as larvas, when the nuclear disaster happened.

To check whether the mutant butterflies were the result of the larvas getting radiation exposure, the scientists exposed healthy larvas from other regions to the same type of radiation in the laboratory at Okinawa. The butterflies that grew out from irradiated larva had the same type of abnormalities in their wings, eyes, legs and antennas.

The work has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The scientists also found that butterflies from sites where radiation was more had more abnormalities - they had much smaller wings and more irregularly shaped eyes.

""It has been believed that insects are very resistant to radiation,"" lead researcher Joji Otaki from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa told BBC News.

""In that sense, our results were unexpected,"" he added.

An even more horrifying result awaited the scientists when they studied the second and third generations of the crippled butterflies - the abnormalities were increasing with successive generations because mutated genes were accumulating in new generations. The Pale Blue Grass butterfly has a life cycle of just one month.

Genes, which carry codes for development of various body parts and functions are present in cells. Their chemical sequence can be altered by radiation from a radioactive substance both, from outside or after eating radioactive stuff.

When the scientists collected more specimems six months later, they found that butterflies from the Fukushima area showed a mutation rate more than double that of those found sooner after the accident. This was partly attributed to genetic accumulation in succeeding generations and partly to eating radioactive food.

The Pale Blue Grass butterfly eats the leaves of only one plant called the wood sorrel that grows close to the ground. Scientists had predicted that radioactive isotopes of Cesium and Iodine would settle down on plants after being spewed into the air from the nuclear plant.

Earlier studies at Chernobyl, the site of a nuclear power plant disaster in 1986, had also indicated effects of radiation on many creatures including insects. But this study leaves no doubt over the long term damage to frail creatures.

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